Activate Your Highest Vision: The Linear Model

This blog is part two in the Activate Your Highest Vision series.

Activating your vision means you’re actively working on your dream this moment, this day. So, let’s explore ways to engage the dream-building process. We’ll start with the most familiar, the linear model.

In school, the linear model is really the only way we’re taught to reach our goals. The shape is a straight line, wherein sequential, actionable steps get you from point A to point B.  Everything from the scientific method, to algebraic equations, to foreign language syntax—even our educational system itself—is linear-based.

Now, actions in sequence can be effective for achieving goals IF you’re clear on your vision, you’ve broken down the correct steps into manageable tasks, and you’re persistent.

For example, let’s say you want to learn to play guitar. Buying, borrowing, or renting an instrument is a clear first step, followed by taking lessons or just playing around until you figure things out on your own. Eventually, if you keep showing up, you’ll learn to play. Nothing very new in this approach.

Activate Your Vision With a Linear Model

In coaching, the linear model can be used creatively, with an activation angle. Case in point, a colleague of mine coached a company’s sales team to increase revenue in a flat market. Patrick identified an energy decline on Friday afternoons and a slow ramp up to momentum Monday mornings as what needed addressing.

First, Patrick invented a way to activate a higher vision, with the slogan, “Fridays make your best Mondays.” On Friday morning, sales reps listed 10-15 local area prospects that would be a big win. Next, Patrick provided small steps towards an increased sales goal. Team members were to visit the premises of their prospect list on Friday afternoon to check out the landscape, the neighborhood, and the vibe. Then, all gathered back at the office for a pizza party to share insights.

By Monday, reps were poised to enter the building, greet the receptionist, and get the name of the person in charge of marketing. Other incremental steps built on one another. Enjoyable, actionable tasks in sequence moved the team towards the higher vision. [check out Patrick Kagan’s Sales Hindsights podcast for more on this story.]

Linear success comes from clear vision, manageable tasks, and persistence

In daily life, a linear approach works, too. Driving to a favorite restaurant, or following a recipe, requires the linear approach. The vital importance of sequence is made clear when you’re having surgery. You want your anesthesiologist to do his job before your surgeon does hers!

But, Is the Linear Model Working for Me?

An interviewer once asked me, how do you know if the linear model is working when you’re in the middle of a large project? He couldn’t always tell if he was making real progress towards his overall goal.

The linear path works best when you’re relaxed and enjoying a pace that’s sustainable—a healthy, happy rhythm that’s in alignment with you. In the success zone, you move fairly easily, though not without obstacles, from one step to the next. More importantly, incremental progress, growth, or expansion will move you forward and upwards, like steps in staircase. You’ll be able to measure the success rate of smaller steps in and of themselves—and, you’ll gain traction. Result? You get closer to the vision you imagined possible.

If the linear approach is not working, you’ll always feel that your goal remains in the distance. You’ll reach for something that’s ever receding. It’s the carrot dangle; the end does not come closer. And the more you do, the more needs to be done.

Clients who are unsuccessful with the linear model often say, I feel like I’m taking one step forward and two steps back. This language indicates to me that they’re trying to move in a straight line, and it’s not effective. 

Is It Possible I’m Not a Linear Person?

Yes! It’s very possible that a linear approach is not for you; and, it’s not the only one. When people, especially Millennials, show up at my door who have tried reaching a goal this way, they often tell me, in frustration, or even tears:

I can’t get there;

I can’t do this;

What’s wrong with me?;

I’m a failure;

Why can’t I do this?!

And I say, You’re not a failure. You just need a different approach. By working with many talented and spirited clients, I’ve been able to identify four other ways to activate your highest vision—cyclical, serpentine, figure eight, and universal. Each style is increasingly non-linear.

So, if you’re struggling in a linear world, please keep reading this blog series. Maybe you’re more creative than you think.

Photo by Ruffa Jane Reyes on Unsplash

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Activate Your Highest Vision, Part 1

This is part one in a blog series on how to activate the highest vision of your life.

If the highest and best vision for your life (or your business) were to be fully realized now, what would it look like?

Watch how this question opens a door to the specific dream currently living in your imagination. Be brave. Enter this new room by letting yourself explore the sights, sounds, and feelings of your highest ideal or greatest passion, fully realized.

Now, you have full permission to be creative in this process. Write or paint your vision, sing or dance it. For creative people, even the sky isn’t a limit—and dreams do come true.

How dreams come true is the focus of this blog series. So, let’s begin.

If You Can Picture It, It’s Here Now

If you’re ready to enjoy the freedom and accept the responsibility of creating your own world, there’s a key principle to embody:

The present moment is the only one in which dreams are made or broken.

Similarly, fears are overcome or given into in this moment. Life is either fully lived or denied—one moment at a time.

So, how does this principle play out when activating your vision?

If you can picture what you’d love to create, it already exists now. If you can imagine the sights, sounds, and feelings, it’s already here. You might say, yeah, but it’s just in my imagination. True. And which, of all the inventions in human history, hasn’t first begun in someone’s imagination?

Therefore, holding the vision in this moment of what you believe possible means it already exists somewhere. Think of it as dwelling in a parallel universe, if you like. Or, in “the future,” if that helps. Don’t let the mind get too concerned about where or when. Just be willing to entertain the possibility that your vision is, relatively speaking, real.

How ‘Activate Your Highest Vision’ Works

The word activate is powerful. It involves action, here and now, that brings the power of potential into reality.

Let’s take a simple example. You go hiking with friends, and at the summit, you all lean in for a selfie. And you’re not surprised when, less than a second later, you’re looking at that same image on your screen.

The activation of a dream works the same way. It just takes more time.

For example, back up to when you first decide you want to go hiking. You have a vision of you, your dog, and a couple of friends piling into your Honda, heading out of town on Saturday morning. You can see the group hitting the trailhead, laughing as you walk up the path, stopping to snack at a waterfall, and enjoying an amazing landscape view at the top.

Wouldn’t that be fun? Yes! You can almost feel that joy right now.

While it may take days, and certain preparations, for you to have the hiking experience, you’ve actually set up the image in your mind in much the same way as you used your phone.

So, frame the shot, do the work—image realized.

What Form Does ‘Activate Your Highest Vision’ Take?

The real question most people bring to coaching when they want to activate their vision is, how will this take shape in my everyday life?

Honestly, by the time a client gets to me, the manifestation or how is already taking form. It’s happening! When you’re in transition, it’s difficult to get the overview. But, the beginnings of a new life are already present—or you wouldn’t even be seeking help to make a change.

So, what’s already showing up? And, how will your dream take form in daily life?

The rest of the blogs in this series will address the form of your journey. I’ve identified five different rhythms that you naturally use to activate your highest and best—without even realizing you’re doing it! These rhythms are like forms in motion.

Learning your natural rhythm is a huge gift! You get to relax. You recognize your own genius. And you gain confidence to bring your vision into physical reality, one action at a time.

So, keep reading! See if one of the rhythms—linear, cyclical, serpentine, figure 8, or universal—makes sense for you. You can stop “reaching to achieve” your goal. Instead, begin to activate your highest vision, now.

Photo by Peter Conlan on Unsplash

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